CIAO DATE: 07/2010
June 2009
Global Political Trends Center
Elections to the European Parliament, considered as the biggest trans-national elections in history, were held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009. The European Parliament is the only EU institution directly elected on a European mandate. According to the election results, mainstream centre-right parties (which are also proposing for Turkey a privileged partnership in the EU instead of membership perspective) have triumphed over their left-wing opponents in the European Parliament and the far-right is getting more ground. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the elections was the strong performance of the green Europe Ecology Party of France, which took third place with 16%. Besides, average turnout of the votes dropped to a historical low (to 43%) since 1979 when the first European Parliament elections were held, which must be seen as a worrying signal in the context of absenteeism. The reasons and the results for this important tendency in Europe are numerous, but converging in certain points, especially with regards to the political divisions, lack of a strong policy response to the financial crisis, absence of leading politicians, problems related to identity crisis, enlargement dilemma, etc. This Policy Brief aims to make a general analysis of main outcomes of the EP elections. It also intends to make some assessments about the role of Turkey’s EU membership bid which was used as one of the main tools in the EP election campaigns.
Resource link: After the European Parliament Elections: The Achilles Heel of the Democracy [PDF] - 337K